Toby Shaw: Candidate profile
Bio
Name: Toby Shaw
City: Elgin
Office sought: Elgin Council member, 4-Year Term
Age: 40
Family: Married to Andrea Shaw for 19 years and have four children
Occupation: Sr. Manager of Infrastructure
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Computer Information Systems-Business Tract, Judson University, 1999
Civic involvement: Member of a house church, First Robotics FTC Team Coach
Previous elected offices held: None
Incumbent? If yes, when were you first elected? Yes, 2013
Website:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/votetobyshaw
Twitter: https://twitter.com/votetobyshaw
Issue questions
What are the most important issues facing your community and how do you intend to address them?
• Long-term infrastructure needs: I will work with staff to put together a long range plan for larger infrastructure requirements that we will be facing in the next five to ten years. This will allow us to better forecast out enterprise projects and allow us more time to plan, communicate and strategize.
• Consistent and fair code enforcement: This continues to be a hot button item for many residents and businesses in Elgin. I am committed to work with staff to create consistent expectations for homeowners and landlords. In addition I will push to leverage technology to make the process of working with the code department streamlined and easy to follow.
What makes you the best candidate for the job?
Elgin needs an advocate for its residents and businesses and I have a proven track record of seeking solutions to problems versus being stuck in the past. I am open minded to new ideas and ideas of others while being able to influence my peers and staff for the best outcome for Elgin. As our society continues to witness examples of poor leadership due to a lack of character and integrity I stand before the residents of Elgin ready to perform my civic duties.
Describe your leadership style and explain how you think that will be effective in producing actions and decisions with your village board or city council.
I recently took the DISC leadership assessment at work which provided me an analytic assessment of my leadership style. I am best described as steady, people oriented, patient, trusted, and constructive. These traits allow my voice to be heard and provide opportunities for consensus building to produce results.
How would you describe the condition of your community's budget, and what are the most important specific actions the town should take to assure providing the level of services people want?
Based on our recent citizen survey results residents are pleased with their services and it's my duty to sustain the quality of these services for the best value. Elgin has a strong financial plan that will allow our community to continue to meet the needs of our residents. We have invested in technology to allow us to be efficient and data driven with our decision making. In addition we're fortunate to be one of the few growing cities in Illinois. My one concern is that poor decisions in Springfield could negatively impact our current three year financial plan.
What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?
Self-Service Elgin - We have the technology in place as a foundation to allow us to now enable self-service for many of the interactions that residents and businesses have with Elgin. By moving away from the paper based and manual work flow processes we can provide quicker and better services. We need to continue to look at ways to make our services more attractive to those we serve.